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Tag Archives: Stephenie Meyer

Life and Death – Meyer Gender-Reverses Twilight And Still Somehow Manages To Be Sexist

25 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by IfByYes in Shhh, I'm Reading, TwiBashing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

abuse, beau swan, edythe cullen, Life and death, reviews, sexism, Stephenie Meyer, TwiBashing, Twilight, writing

I found out recently that in her 10th Anniversary Edition of Twilight, Stephenie Meyer basically re-wrote it with everyone’s gender being reversed, and called it Life and Death.

So of course I had to read that.life and death cover

As you probably already know, I have had a few things to say about Twilight, especially when it comes to sexism.

So I was intrigued by the idea of a gender reversed Twilight.

if you imagine a domineering, aggressive female love interest and a pliable and clumsy male love interest, well… Twilight would still be badly written and promote abusive relationship models, but you couldn’t call it sexist any more.

So I picked up a copy. Used. Because I’m not giving money to the publisher of this drivel.

Aside: Yes, that’s right, it’s the publisher I blame. I don’t hate Stephenie Meyer, or wish her ill. She is a mom who wrote a book, just like me, and she struck the jackpot. Good on her, and I should be so lucky. It’s just the message of her books that I don’t like, and her writing style, and basically everything. But I wish her all the best and I envy her, I really do. 

Aside Aside: On that note, my non-sexist, body positive, zombie-romance rewrite of Twilight is almost ready to be published. If you visit my author website before it comes out, you can sign up to get a free kindle copy of the book when it comes out. It’s like a preorder. But free. I’m not looking to get rich, I just want people to read my book. 

“Why are you reading that?” my husband asked when Life and Death arrived in the mail. “Why do you torture yourself?”

“Because – I will bet you money that even with all of the genders reversed, Stephenie Meyer will still find a way to make this book sexist,” I told him.

“Well, if you go into it with that attitude, you’ll find something,” he said. “Confirmation bias.”

He was absolutely right. and it’s easy to assume that every change I spotted was made for sexist reasons. Take this one:

Twilight:

‘Well, Billy’s done a lot of work on the engine – it’s only a few years old, really.’

Life and Death: 

‘Well, Bonnie’s had a lot of work done on the engine – it’s only a few years old, really.’

What, women can’t do work on their own truck’s engine? WTF?

But here’s the thing: I really wanted to be wrong. I did. I wanted to believe that Meyer had produced something that really stood out. I wanted to believe that I was holding the cure to the ills of the original story.

And you know what? It sort of worked. I think. Life And Death is a vastly superior story to Twilight. It is also a vastly different story.

I had been led to believe that Life and Death was just Twilight, with the genders reversed. But it isn’t. The two books are wildly different. Meyer didn’t just go in and do word-replaces. She changed a LOT of stuff, and a lot of that stuff made for a better story.

However, I can’t decide whether she changed it because she knew that it would make things better, or if she changed it because she’s really freaking sexist. 

Let me describe the changes, then you can decide for yourself.

Continue reading →

Round 5: Words. You Should Know How To Use Them

01 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by IfByYes in TwiBashing

≈ 56 Comments

Tags

authors, books, grammar, Harry Potter, jk rowling, literature, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, Twilight Saga, writers, writing

   VS  

 So, here we are.

We’re compared these authors by their prejudices, their morals, and their ability to construct plots, devise good narration, and describe the action (as well as their ability to describe the characters).

But there is one important point that we haven’t covered, and it seems like a fairly important one, considering the medium in which these ladies work:

Words. You Should Know How To Use Them.

I really feel that this is the ultimate requirement for a writer, don’t you?

A writer uses words as her medium the way that a painter uses paint. What you write and how you write it is important, of course, just as the subject and execution of a portrait is important…

…But if you don’t know how to mix those paints on your palette before you put them onto the canvas, you’re never going to get a great result. So now I want to examine the skill with which each of these authors wields their pen.

First I’m going to break down their use of the individual parts of speech – nouns, verbs and so on. Then we’ll talk about how well they are put together to make coherent (or not) sentences.

Note: You may notice that a lot of the examples I give come from the same books/sections. I hope you’ll forgive me for grabbing examples in chunks, rather than carefully trawling through the whole series to find a varied selection.

Continue reading →

Rowling vs Meyer, Round 4 – How Can I Describe Meyer’s Writing?

18 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by IfByYes in TwiBashing

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

adjectives, adverbs, books, characterization, characters, criticism, description, Harry Potter, jk rowling, literary criticism, literature, reviews, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, writing

Remember how I talked about cramming the universe into a teaspoon when it came to comparing J K Rowling with Stephenie Meyer? Well, when I actually started on discussing the writing, I discovered that I had to split it into two. This is the second half of round 3. The reason it took so long was that it was STILL getting out of hand. Therefore, there will also be a Round 5. It’ll probably stop there. Probably.

In this round, we will look more closely at the way these two ladies write – specifically, their use of description and their ability to create unique characters… or the lack thereof.

(A note about spoilers: I will keep Harry Potter spoilers to a minimum, only letting go the kind of information that you could pick up from your standard movie trailer and have probably picked up on already, unless you live in a world without other people. Twilight spoilers, on the other hand, abound, because I can’t “spoil” Twilight any more than I can “spoil” a compost heap.)

Continue reading →

Image

Round 3: Rowling vs Meyer – Time to Actually Discuss THE WRITING

04 Tuesday Oct 2011

Tags

book titles, books, Breaking Dawn, criticism, Eclipse, Harry Potter, j.k. rowling, literature, narration, New Moon, plot, reviews, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, Twilight Saga, writing

I have talked about the messages behind Twilight and Harry Potter, and now, I think, it is time to actually discuss these two ladies as writers.

I know, crazy talk.

There are many different aspects of writing, so I’m going to try and go through them individually, since each writer has strengths and weaknesses. There are a lot of aspects to consider, so there will be a fourth round as well.

I’m going to give Stephenie Meyer a head start…

(A note about spoilers: I will keep Harry Potter spoilers to a minimum, only letting go the kind of information that you could pick up from your standard movie trailer and have probably picked up on already, unless you live in a world without other people. Twilight spoilers, on the other hand, abound, because I can’t “spoil” Twilight any more than I can “spoil” a compost heap.)

Continue reading →

Posted by IfByYes | Filed under TwiBashing

≈ 40 Comments

Round 1: In Which Stephenie Meyer Confuses Feminism With Kung Fu.

31 Sunday Jul 2011

Posted by IfByYes in TwiBashing

≈ 64 Comments

Tags

books, characters, feminism, Harry Potter, j.k. rowling, literary criticism, literature, protagonists, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, women in fiction

(A note about spoilers: I will keep Harry Potter spoilers to a minimum, only letting go the kind of information that you could pick up from your standard movie trailer and have probably picked up on already, unless you live in a world without other people. Twilight spoilers, on the other hand, abound, because I can’t “spoil” Twilight any more than I can “spoil” a compost heap.)

The main protagonist of Harry Potter is a boy, while the protagonist of Twilight is a girl, so you’d think that Twilight would be more feminist in its message.

But anyone who has read that series would laugh hysterically at the suggestion that it was anything other than unempowering anti-feminist sludge. Well, anyone except the author.

Can you FEEL the girl power?

Stephanie Meyer doesn’t agree with the rest of the Western World that Twilight is sexist codswallop.

Sure, Bella is pretty weak and useless. And sure, Edward tends to make all of the decisions. And yeah, Edward frequently ignores Bella’s preferences (drags her to the car/prom/house/birthday party/altar against her will, hides information that he doesn’t think she should hear, steals the engine out of her car to keep her “safe” from his rival…) in the name of knowing what is best for her.

Well, and ok, she is constantly needing her butt saved by someone, and she does do all the cooking and shopping around her house (because her father, after being a bachelor for 16 years, can’t even cook pasta, apparently). And she does attach all of her life’s value to the presence of a man.

But, Meyer doesn’t understand why we make such a big deal of all that.

Just because she doesn’t do kung fu and she cooks for her father doesn’t make her worthy of that criticism.

Ok, Steph.

Meyer has also pointed out that there are other strong female characters in Twilight other than, er, Bella.

I am all about girl power—look at Alice and Jane if you doubt that.

Okay, let’s run through your other female characters, shall we? We’ll start with Alice and Jane.

Continue reading →

Freaking Dawn

17 Sunday Jul 2011

Posted by IfByYes in TwiBashing

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

book reviews, books, Breaking Dawn, idiocy, literary criticism, literature, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight

I’m not sure exactly how to review Breaking Dawn. It is like reviewing a train wreck.

I mean, I could go through it point by point and indicate everything wrong with it, but then it would look like this:

p. 6

(NB: These are the pages according to my E-reader. They may not correspond perfectly to the print book)

Preface:

It seemed oddly inevitable, though, facing death again.

There is nothing “odd”, Bella, about death’s inevitability. Death and taxes, Bella, death and taxes.

Like I really was marked for disaster.

Bella, you are not “marked for disaster” just because you keep surviving dangerous situations. You’re goddamn lucky. 

“If you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options.”

It isn’t noble to sit there and let someone you love kill you just because you love them. You can still call the cops and then love them from effing afar. 

Also, chiming in with some hindsight glasses – given that this rant most likely pertains to your life-sucking pregnancy, this is risking your life for your child, not just letting someone you love kill you.

There is a difference. The fact that you can’t distinguish that difference is one of the many reasons why I think that you are a complete twerp.

Chapter 1:

Two pedestrians were frozen on the sidewalk, missing their chance to cross as they stared. Behind them, Mr. Marshall was gawking through the plate-glass window of his little souvenir shop.

But this is a town where the Cullens regularly drive sport cars about. Bella is supposedly driving a Mercedes Guard, but here’s the thing – the car may be a tank, but it’s not that flashy. That makes sense if you think about it – it’s meant to protect people, not look cool.

I sincerely doubt that this car is stopping pedestrians on the street and making people gawk out of shop windows. Bella is a paranoid weirdo, as usual, who thinks that everything is about her. Probably there’s a flamingo walking up the street and Bella has totally missed this bizarre occurrence because she’s such a self-obsessed whack job.

If I hadn’t been running on vapors, I wouldn’t come into town at all.

That brings up a good point. Bella, you live in small town America. If you don’t like driving your crazy new car, why don’t you walk like a normal person? You’ve obviously been driving this car, since it is “running on vapors”.

Either walk, or stop whining.

I had been going without a lot of things these days, like Pop-Tarts and shoelaces, to avoid spending time in public.

Not Pop-Tarts and shoelaces! How long-suffering is our heroine? The starving children of Africa don’t know how good they have it. If only there was someone else in the household who could do shopping, oh right, her father, but he can’t shop because he’s just a man, you know.

Of course, there was nothing I could do to make the numbers on the gauge pick up the pace. They ticked by sluggishly, almost as if they were doing it just to annoy me.

Bella, I realize you have paranoid and narcissistic tendencies, but try to get a grip. EVERYTHING is not about you.

p. 7

It was stupid to be so self-conscious, and I knew that.

Do you? Do you REALLY?

I briefly contemplated my issues with words like fiance, wedding, husband, etc. I just couldn’t put it together in my head.

I realize that it must be exhausting to try and make both neurons fire at once.

I just couldn’t reconcile a staid, respectable, dull concept like husband with my concept of Edward.

WARNING, WARNING – if you can’t imagine your intended behaving in a reliable, respectable way as a husband, then DON’T MARRY THAT PERSON. As much as teenagers want to believe that romance remains exciting forever, the fact remains that a few years down the road, it’s going to be much more important to you that your husband is the kind of guy who comes home and helps out with the dishes than whether or not he sparkles in the sunlight.

p. 8

I swiftly put away the nozzle and crept into the front seat to hide while the enthusiast dug a huge professional-looking camera out of his backpack. He and his friend took turns posing by the hood, and then they went to take pictures at the back end.

If someone is taking photos of the hood of your car, the front seat is a really stupid place to hide. Even if your side windows are tinted, the state of Washington doesn’t permit tinting on the main body of the windshield, so YOU ARE IN THOSE PICTURES. Especially since we have already established that it is “a typical drizzly day”, so the reflection of the sun won’t save you.

And missile-proof glass? Nice. What happened to old-fashioned bullet-proof?

There is no such thing as missile-proof glass, Bella, unless you count “missile” literally, meaning anything someone has thrown, like a rock or maybe a grenade. Then again, you believed that Edward was a vampire without much persuasion.

p. 9

I hadn’t seen the ‘after’ car yet. It was hidden under a sheet in the deepest corner of the Cullens’ garage. I knew most people would have peeked by now, but I really didn’t want to know.

Let’s get this straight. Your reason for not “peeking” at your gift is not because “it’s wrong to peek”, it’s because you just don’t want to know. You also think that “most people” would have peeked, which means that you either think that “most people” are bad people, or you actually don’t understand that it is wrong to peek at a gift. That makes YOU a bad person. But I knew that already.

No matter how many times I drove down the familiar road home, I still couldn’t make the rain-faded flyers fade into the background.

Are you incapable of naming a noun without slapping on an adjective? Also, why did you just use the word “fade” twice within a single word of each other? It’s called a Thesaurus, Bella. USE IT. Or even better, let the occasional noun pass undescribed. It won’t kill you.

Finally, rain doesn’t fade things, you everlasting moron. THE SUN fades things, and you’re always moaning about how little sun there is in Forks. Rain melts things, or washes them out, it doesn’t fade them. The only thing that rain can fade is radio waves. You fail at adjectives in every way possible.

He was more disappointed with Billy, Jacob’s father – and Charlie’s closest friend. For Billy’s not being more involved with the search for his sixteen-year-old “runaway.” For Billy’s refusing to put up the flyers in La Push, the reservation on the coast that was Jacob’s home. For his seeming resigned to Jacob’s disappearance, as if there was nothing he could do. For his saying “Jacob’s a grown up now. He’ll come home if he wants to.

Why are those periods there, particularly that first one, between “closest friend” and “For Billy’s”? That period should not be there. I realize, Bella, that you have a real hate on for writing normal sentences, preferring either nonsensical sentence fragments or multiple sentences that have been conjoined like Siamese twins, but this is a particularly atrocious example.

Let me play the part of editor, for a moment, since yours seems to have been on a smoke break through the publication of this entire series. Here are some ways you could have worded this in a way that didn’t suck balls and make the God of Grammar want to smite you from above:

[My father] was even more disappointed with Billy – Jacob’s father and Charlie’s closest friend – because he was not more involved in the search for his sixteen-year-old runaway. Billy refused to put up the flyers in La Push – the reservation on the coast where they lived. He seemed resigned to Jacob’s disappearance and kept saying, “Jacob’s a grown up now. He’ll come home if he wants to.

Was that so hard? Doesn’t that read better? Christ on a waffle, Bella, full sentences are your friends.

[over four hundred pages omitted for length reasons]

Continue reading →

In Which Carol Reads Eclipse And Throws A Book Against A Wall

15 Friday Apr 2011

Posted by IfByYes in Shhh, I'm Reading, TwiBashing

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

criticism, drek, Eclipse, literature, reviews, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, writing

*headdesk*

I finished Eclipse the other day. It’s been difficult trying to narrow down what stuff to bitch about, because there’s so much wrong with everything.

Good stuff: They finally wrap up some plot lines that have been running since the start of the series. Also, the character of Jacob is almost three dimensional, since he has both good and bad qualities and usually says interesting things. When he’s around, the story is almost interesting.

Edward, on the other hand, totally loses any remaining Byronic qualities and becomes an insipid piece of female fantasy with absolutely no personality.

Bella remains an idiotic, martyring, moaning, boy-obsessed twatwaffle who is basically a bad person. Stephenie Meyer remains an astonishingly bad writer (never mind whether or not you like the story or the characters, the writing is bad. Just awful. Swifties and weird grammar and misapplications of the word “literally” everywhere).

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